Is my seeing really believing?

Seeing is believing. Or is it? Sometimes: The Condition of our Sight is off. We are near/far sighted. We have glaucoma, or cataracts or color blindness. Sometimes it is Capacity of our minds that throws us. There are optical illusions –that box that goes in both directions; the straight line through curves… Magicians trick us into seeing what they want us to… Other times it is the Object itself that fools us. We have “Formica” wood, “Vinyl” ceramic floor tiles, “fake” marble, “Styrofoam rocks...” So seeing is not necessarily believing. Ask the man in the gospel. Or his parents. Or the Pharisees.

And as often happens in John’s gospel, it the questions asked that bring us to the central mystery. To the man we hear the questions: “Where is he?” (the one who healed you?)
“How have you recovered your sight?
“Since it was your eyes he has opened, what do you have to say about him?”
To the Parents: “Is this your son, and was he blind from birth? How do you now account for the fact that he can see?”
To the Pharisees: “Do you want to become his disciples too?”
To the man again: “Just what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” -> Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
And finally: to Jesus:
Who is he, sir, that I may believe him?

The questions trace a progression - from the physical healing to the spiritual coming to faith (in the midst of great opposition.) From his first response of: I DO NOT KNOW to his final movement of: I DO BELIEVE, LORD - He is involved in that great and awesome process of coming to know the one who is proclaimed as LIGHT. Not just physical light - but the LIGHT THAT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS as John proclaimed at the beginning of his Gospel. The light that brings us the very life of God... And as he had to face and answer these questions to come to his moment of belief - so do you and I. How have you come to see? What keeps you from seeing, from seeing the Light?

Is it:
A) condition of our sight? For the man born blind, his condition was healed. For us – do we remain blind to another's need/pain; to races of people, to the poverty, to the injustice, to the violence in our cities. As long as it is over there – I don't have to worry.
And Jesus stands before us as he stood before the blind man - and bids us wash in the pool of 'one who is sent' - that we might see where it is that we are sent to, and who we are called to love.
B) Capacity of our minds - as you trace the movement of the blind man to faith, you see the opposite happening in the Pharisees - a hardness of heart - a refusal to see the evidence that is before them. "We know this man is a sinner” Blind man says: "I don't know that - What I do know is that before I could not see - now I can." The evidence of my eyes says that only God can do such things.

Perhaps like the Pharisees - you and I are so quick to cut others off. There is a prejudice that keeps our eyes closed. Or we’ve been wounded in a relationship and un-forgiveness closes our minds to the possibility of change. Or there is a cynicism that clouds our minds about people or the world – and we remain blind to the good that does happen..
And Jesus stands before us, as he stood before the blind man and asks - Do you believe in the Son of Man? Do you believe that by Baptism, by grace, he lives in the least of your brothers and sisters? And perhaps like the blind man - we ask - Who is he, sir, that I might believe? Pray that he might remove the blinders that keep us from seeing him...

C) Object itself deceives. The Pharisees were to lead people to the Light - to the messiah. But they become the ones who throw the man out of the temple. They were so interested in their own importance or control or whatever that they became the darkness they professed to fight against.

Blind man bows to worship before Jesus and only him. And Jesus stands before us and asks: “will you worship me - not money, not power, not possessions, not arms or guns or anything else that might pose as a god; anything that might deceive us into giving our allegiance to it? Will you worship me and me alone?

A lot to pray into this week. Invite you simply to keep the gospel question before you as you live: Is my seeing really believing?